There are times, not many, when you sit in a theatre, the lights go down, the movie begins and you just know that you’re about to see something special and very original. In other words, you know that you are in very good hands.
That’s exactly the way I felt from the first frame of Lars von Trier’s ‘Nymphomaniac-Volume 1.
In my opinion, this is his best film or at least, my favorite. I absolutely loved this movie.
The film starts out with a man named Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) walking home, carrying a bag of groceries. It’s nighttime and it’s raining. He comes across a woman, Joe (the extraordinary, Charlotte Gainsbourg) lying beaten and unconscious in an alley way.
He gently touches her and she opens her eyes. The man asks if she wants to go to a hospital…She doesn’t. Joe wants a cup of tea.
Seligman takes her back to his apartment, put her in bed and gives her a cup of tea.
Joe than proceeds to tell Stellan about her life from childhood to young adulthood and through a series of flashbacks, we see just what kind of life it was.
You see, as the title suggests, Joe is a Nymphomaniac. As a child, (Ananya Berg) she started to pleasure herself on the floor of her bathroom with her best friend by her side.
As she grew older, Joe (played by first time actress, Stacy Martin) would have as many as 15 sexual encounters in one day.
Sex for Joe, was not just about pleasure…It was something she could not do without. It didn’t matter how many people she hurt, how many marriages she destroyed…She was an addict…
Why did Joe have such a profound need for sex? Maybe it had to do with her her cold, distant mother (Connie Nielsen) who would spend hours playing the game of Solitaire. Her father (Christian Slater) seemed nice enough, taking her on long walks in the woods where Joe would smell the leaves and learn the names of trees.
Doesn’t matter really. What matters is that Joe is a woman that is unable to form lasting relationships or any kind of emotional attachment. Joe also also believes that she is a very bad person, even though Seligman tells her over and over again that she’s just confused. He also compares Joe’s sexual encounters with Bach, fly fishing and higher math. In any case, Joe is a woman you can’t take your eyes off of. Her character grabs you and never lets go.
she’s also a profoundly lonely and sad woman…but ‘Nymphomaniac Volume 1 is anything but sad and that’s thanks to Von Trier’s brilliant direction and writing, The film is complex, compelling and highly erotic.
Yes, there is a lot of sex…Oral, anal, shots of genitalia… but the film is not pornography…on any level…
At the same time, it’s not a movie for everyone. I wouldn’t recommend it to my grandmother or my mother…
But then again, I wouldn’t recommend ‘Transformers’ to them either.
Rounding out an incredible cast is Uma Thurman, as a scorned wife…BYT This is Miss Thurman’s best performance in a very long time. In fact, she almost steals the film.
Shia LaBeouf (Jerome) plays Joe’s first sexual partner and despite he’s not so great English accent, he’s kind of interesting.
I gave ‘Nymphomaniac Volume 1’ my highest bagel rating…5 out of 5 and I think if John saw the film, he’d be right up there with me.
‘Nymphomaniac opens in select theatres, Friday March 21, 2014 and if you’re a fan of Von Trier and Art House films, this is definitely a must see.
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